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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/18/2012 2:02 PM, Gary Crabtree
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
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<div><font face="Calibri">Hey it's you and hanson that are
suggesting that the compilation of lists would be a swell
idea, not I. I assure you I am quite relaxed.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri">Since you bring up "</font><font
face="Calibri">administrative burden," what kind of burden is
it likely to be to locate, record, and keep track of the
approximately 270 million privately held firearms currently
circulating in the United States, many of which are going to
be held by otherwise law abiding private citizens who are
likely to be more than a little underwhelmed with your
firearms and the IRS scheme?</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Ballpark, order-of-magnitude, estimates are that the IRS will
receive about a quarter billion tax return filings in 2012. Not
quite half will be electronic filings by practitioners and
individuals, with the remainder filed on paper forms and
attachments. Given that some people will have zero weapons to
report, and some will have a few, and a few will have many, this
order of magnitude task is well within the size of ordinary IRS
operations. These operations will rely on data reported by
taxpayers, and one supposes will enjoy rates of accuracy and
completeness not dissimilar to other self-reported information
types.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div><font face="Calibri">The next question of course would be
should this highly dubious exercise in overreach be achieved,
what next?</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
From the point of view of the vast majority of taxpayers, the vast
majority of the time, nothing. Concerning one relatively small
percentage of filers, some legitimate law enforcement entity might
query an IRS database and discover that a weapon recovered from a
crime scene, or from a person of interest, has ownership information
that either does or does not match with the identity of the person
from whom the weapon was recovered. The law enforcement personnel
may then proceed with their operations as is appropriate from the
query results.<br>
<br>
Concerning another, probably considerably smaller percentage of
filers, an IRS computer program, or an IRS agent, examining a return
with a large loss item related to the sale of several weapons or a
weapons collection might flag that return for further examination by
way of an audit. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div><font face="Calibri">How will it prevent the tragedies we
have recently witnessed?</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
First, it should be mentioned that there are just over approximately
29 thousand weapons-related deaths per year. Of those, about one and
a half thousand deaths are just accidents, i.e., careless misuse of
weapons. About 16 thousand deaths are considered suicides by firearm
usage, and the remaining approximately 12 thousand deaths are
considered murders via weapons use.<br>
<br>
This question cannot be answered prospectively except with a
non-quantitative statement of expectation. My expectation is that
none of the numbers in the preceding paragraph would be reduced to
zero. There will still be accidents, there will still be suicides,
and there will still be murders even if every gun were completely
and correctly recorded in a database. However, it is also my
expectation that individuals' awareness of the fact that the weapons
are registered will cause some percentage of them to be more aware
of, more conscious of, and more careful with the safe operation,
storage, and restriction of those weapons from inappropriate
individuals, especially children. The fact of registration may make
a few individuals more aware that, because some other people are
devoting some small degree of their awareness to that
personally-owned firearm, they may be marginally more inclined to
seek less self-destructive solutions for problems for which a weapon
might appear a quick, easy, way out. Admittedly, this is just
blue-sky speculation. But it is true that people will act less
impulsively and more responsibly if they think, consciously or
otherwise, that they are being watched. To the extent that gun
registration promotes more self-conscious and responsible gun
ownership behaviors, lives will be saved and society will benefit.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div><font face="Calibri">As far as the media has been able to
ascertain the firearms used were purchased legally, at least
from the sellers perspective.</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Are you actually suggesting that if some local reporter flounces a
steno pad past the front window of a local gun shop, and no
whistle-blowing genie appears from a teapot sitting on the sidewalk
by the door, that all is well in the world of firearms sold in the
vicinity? Concerning the idea that many reporters work together with
establishment figures to assure most readers that everything is
fine, there's nothing to see here, move along, move along, that's
just the Herman-Chomsky _Manufacturing Consent_ idea expressed with
respect to members of the public disadvantaged from lack of insider
access to information.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div><font face="Calibri">(Lying on the 4473 form regarding ones
mental health is quite beyond their control) What good would
it do for an IRS agent to have been aware of the transaction?
Do you believe that a well timed audit would have saved the
day?</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
IRS agents are primarily concerned with tax liability recognition
and recovery, not suicide prevention, murder investigation, or
weapons-safety training and encouragement.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div></div>
<div><font face="Calibri">Your plan would create a great deal more
bureaucracy, waste significant amounts of taxpayer dollars,
turn many law abiding gun owners into criminals at the stroke
of a pen and do next to nothing to solve the perceived
problem.</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
To the extent that higher degrees of fairness in tax law
administration, justice in criminal law administration, and mental
health in suicide prevention efforts are achieved, the incremental,
marginal costs of a small number of additional IRS forms, modest
amounts of computer programming, and proportional amounts of tax
audit and law enforcement research effort are likely to be
considered worthwhile expenditures toward significant, measurable
results.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:92784C10A5A14163B3E42CE86A2969C8@GaryPC"
type="cite">
<div><font face="Calibri">Liberal do something (especially
something ineffective) disease run amok.</font></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Well, goodness gracious, sakes alive, it's yet another dollop of
whining conservative resistance to efforts to accomplish a safer,
fairer, and more just community within which everyone may share some
personal pride and private enjoyment.<br>
<br>
<br>
Ken<br>
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